Chantel White
Introduction My name is Chantel White. I was born February 1, 1993 in Lawton, Oklahoma . I am a junior and currently studying public relations at The University of Oklahoma. I have one older sister who will graduate from The University of Central Oklahoma in May 2014. My sister and I grew up with our maternal grandparents in Lawton. For this project, I will share some family history reflecting the maternal side of my family because they are the people I am closest to. Maternal Grandfather My grandpa’s name is Bernard. He was born February 13, 1941 in West Palm Beach, Florida. When he was 2-years-old, he moved to Syracuse, New York. His mother, Lena, raised him as a single parent until he was 12-years-old when she married his stepfather. Before his mother’s marriage, my grandpa learned how to be self-sufficient because his mother worked most of the day. After his mother got married, they moved to Buffalo, New York where he went to Seneca Vocational High School . It was similar to a trade school and it was an all boys high school. He quit high school his junior year mainly because he felt that he needed to leave Buffalo. A lot of his friends were getting in to trouble and he did not want to fall in to that. When he left high school he went to join the Marines. However, he did not pass the entrance exam so he took the exam to enter the army and passed. He was a part of the field artillery where they shot guns and were support to infantry soldiers. My grandpa enjoyed the army because it taught him a lot of things that he would not have learned growing up in Buffalo. My grandpa met my grandma around 1965 when he was stationed at Fort Sill. They dated for about two years before they got married and my grandpa went to Vietnam. They had two daughters, Carmon and Lena. My grandpa wanted to have daughters because he knew how boys were and he thought girls would be easier. He wanted them to be educated and independent so they would not have to depend on anyone. He did not want them to end up having kids early with no education or income. He also thought that girls were supposed to be “sugar and spice and everything nice.” My grandma thought that was hilarious. Maternal Grandmother My grandma’s name is Ramona. She was born October 29, 1949 in Lawton, Oklahoma where she spent her entire life. Growing up, she did not like school. She was not bad at it; she just did not like it. She enjoyed gardening, sewing and fishing because they relaxed her and she liked being out in nature. She lived in a neighborhood called Lawton View. It was a black community and only black people lived there most of her upbringing. When Hispanic people eventually moved into the neighborhood, they were not seen any different than the blacks already living there. My grandmother and her entire family used to pick cotton to earn money. Her father was a construction worker, but they still picked cotton as a way to earn money for food. The only interaction my grandma had with anyone who was not black was her father’s boss, who was white. My grandma did not see the benefit of desegregation in Lawton because everything that became integrated got shut down. As a child, she remembered riding on the back of the bus but because she was young she did not know any different. That was just the way things were. When the buses became integrated they eventually stopped running. Parks and movie theaters began to close down as well. One theater stayed open after integration, but she said blacks still sat in the balcony and whites still sat at the bottom. Soon after, it closed as well. My grandmother went to all black schools until her senior year. She attended Douglas Junior High School that was also a high school because it was the only high school for black students. After integration , the school shut down and she attended Lawton High School for her senior year. It was not until then that she had everyday interactions with people who were not black. She did not pay any attention to them and they did not bother her because she just saw them as light skinned people and she was from dark skinned people. She graduated high school in 1967.She met her best friend, Gloria, who was white, when she was in her twenties. My grandmother married young and had a family so she was not able to attend college and no financial aid was available to her like it is for people now. She tried to teach her kids to be helpful and to do their homework. She wanted her children to make something of themselves and was very proud when they graduated high school and started to attend college. Aunt My aunt, Lena, was very shy and did not do much growing up. She was an A and B student and her main focus was getting out of high school and going to college. She graduated high school in 1991. She went to Cameron University for her first year of college and then transferred to Langston University for her second year. She returned to Cameron for her third and fourth year because she had a relationship with a guy at Langston that did not work out. Where relationships are concerned, she prefers black men. She said that it is not that she would not date outside of her race, she just likes black men more than others. She is a very open-minded person; she is comfortable around any and everyone including black, white, Asian, gay, transgender and so on. Her best friend is half black and half Korean and they get along very well. My aunt does not believe in traditional roles. Her current boyfriend is from the south and he believes in women being in the kitchen and he is very traditional. My aunt is more modern. She believes that a relationship should be 50/50. If she is paying for something, she wants it her way. My aunt is very set in her ways and can be stubborn at times and she knows that. She likes to make her own decisions and does not like people trying to tell her what she should do. Sister My sister, Britni, and I are four years apart. She was born November 30, 1989. Technically, she is my half sister, but because we grew up together we do not view each other in that way. What I notice about us is that as comfortable as I am interacting with people who are not black and dating outside my race, my sister is more comfortable. I believe I am a really open-minded person, but, again, she is even more open-minded. My sister and I have very little in common, but we get along really good. We both know that no matter what we have each other’s back and that will never change. Summary After listening to the stories my family provided, I realized that I get a lot of who I am from my grandparents and my aunt. My get my work ethic from my grandpa. He has always been a hard worker and independent. In a way, I get my interaction behaviors from both my grandma and grandpa and my aunt. Like my grandpa and aunt, I get along with everyone I meet and I do not care about race or sexuality. I am comfortable around anyone, but at the same time, like my grandma, I tend to avoid being around people sometimes. Hearing the stories about my grandma picking cotton made me think more in depth about black history. Before, it was just a subject I read about, but after talking with her, it was family history. My aunt and I are both modern women. We both believe in a 50/50 relationship. However, I am not set in my ways like she is. I am fine with a man being the ‘man of the house,’ just as long as he understands that the ‘woman of the house’ title holds the same amount of weight. There is information about my family that also relates to the subject matter of this class that I did not mention because it was private. I think that reflects in what we do not see in the portrayals of race, gender, and class in the media. There are issues that are not addressed in the media because we do not like to talk about them such as issues related to class, problems with the intersectionality of race and gender, and so on. Before this assignment, I thought those things needed to be talked about. After this assignment, I see why they are not talked about. Maybe one day they will be. Category:Students